


we keep living anyway

by daltonacademyfightclub



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Character Study, Dean learns to forgive, Gen, Introspection, Roman is a devious little shit, surgery!Seth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:52:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5222306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daltonacademyfightclub/pseuds/daltonacademyfightclub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Life doesn't discriminate</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Between the sinners</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And the saints</i>
  <br/>
  <i>It takes and it takes and it takes</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And we keep loving anyway</i>
  <br/>
  <i>We laugh and we cry</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And we break</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And we make our mistakes</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	we keep living anyway

Dean always admired Roman’s ability to adapt to the situation at hand. He didn’t fixate the same way Dean did, holding onto the shreds of his anger until they dissipated weeks, months, maybe even _years_ later, depending on how strongly he felt. He knew Roman had heard him in his sleep get angry at his mother, the parents of the group homes from his youth, anyone who had done him wrong in the past. Seth had heard those too, before he was added to the lineup himself.

“I don’t forgive often,” Dean had boasted rather proudly one day to Roman as he pounded down another PBR at the bar (because if he wasn’t drinking shitty beer, he reasoned, was he really Dean Ambrose?). “And I _never_ forget.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Roman answered tactfully, still on his phone for some reason rather than paying any mind to the beer Dean had bought for him as well. His back didn’t hurt anymore from the chair, not in the way Dean knew his mind was aching with fresh wounds caused by betrayal. But then again, Roman was always quiet. He did his work and kept to himself. Backstage, he didn’t speak unless he was spoken to first. Meanwhile, he had found a brother of sorts in Dean of all people, who knew he couldn’t shut up to save his life and let his freak flag fly.

Now that Seth was out of commission, though, Dean didn’t know what to do. With the championship vacant as of that moment and another chance to win it in the tournament leading up to Survivor Series, there was a lot on his mind. Especially since there was a good - no, _very likely_ \- chance that he’d be up against Roman for the title in the finals.

He brought that possibility up to Roman, who scoffed. “Look, bro,” Roman had began, sitting Dean down on a suitcase backstage and clapping him on the back. “No matter what happens, we’re still brothers regardless. _That’s_ what The Authority cares about, splitting us up. They know we’re unstoppable together, and they’ve exhausted their options of breaking us up together now that Seth is away.”

(“Away” wasn’t how Dean would put a career-threatening and title reign-ending injury, but okay.)

“I promise,” Roman continued, “that if I win, I won’t let it come between us. And if it comes down to me up against you for it in the end, I won’t lay down for you to let you have it, since I know that’d bother you more.”

Dean grinned at that. That was the rough-and-tumble side of Roman Reigns he really loved. The kind that would eat a box of nails and spit it out into your face if he was amped up enough. “And what if I win, wise guy?”

“If you win, which is entirely possible given your slick moves like that rebound off the ropes -” Dean had to restrain himself from shoving Roman off the side of the suitcase for that smartass comment - “then I’m still your man. Hell, I’ll be your J&J Security if you feel like it, brother. We already know I’m twice the man of both of them.”

“You - what?” Dean wrinkled his nose. “You still need some work on your phrasing, brother. Shit’s getting a little mixed up up there.”

“I know,” Roman sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’m still slowly workin’ on it.”

* * *

Dean found himself questioning his rules about forgiveness when he found out that Roman had visited Seth post-surgery in the hospital after they got back stateside. “What the _fuck_ , man,” Dean hissed over the phone in his hotel room, feeling that odd tar-like feeling of betrayal crawl up from his gut. “Does what he did mean nothing to you anymore? What he did to me? _Us_?”

“Dean,” Roman replied, and Dean could hear beeping of hospital instruments in the background, letting him know that Roman likely was on speaker. “He’s hurt badly. And what could he even do to us now, huh? You think he’s still the apple of Hunter and Stephanie’s eye now that he won’t even make Wrestlemania in April, huh? He’s not the golden boy anymore, he’s nothing, really. Even if he really wanted to, he couldn’t hurt us now.” Dean heard the sound of a door click open after Roman stopped talking before another voice spoke up.

“I could hear every word you said in there, you know.” Seth’s voice was dull, like someone had turned his power down to the lowest setting possible without shutting him off. If he wasn’t still so damn heated at the very idea that his supposed brother and best friend went to go see their own personal Judas, he would have probably felt some modicum of sympathy.

“I’m not sorry,” he heard Roman reply. “Dean’s perfectly justified in asking those questions, and you know that if I’d even just suggested coming to see you that he would’ve asked me all this one-on-one. Better you know how I feel and what I think he should know.”

There was more rustling, likely Seth adjusting his posture in the hospital bed. “Wouldn’t want to see him anyway,” Dean heard Seth mumble. Apparently Seth was unaware of how Roman had set up the call.

“Why not?” he heard Roman ask.

“He’d probably spit in my face or something,” Seth replied, with a snort. “Like something out of the Attitude Era. He’d pull a Stone Cold and Dirty Deeds me onto the floor.”

“If we’re staying true to history,” Dean heard himself saying, “the least I could do is have Roman send in a balloon animal artist first.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment and Dean wondered if Roman had hung up on him since he figured that he wasn’t supposed to say anything. “Would Roman have Mr. Socko?” Seth spoke up, his voice sounding slightly brighter than before. “I don’t think we could get him in the Mankind outfit fast enough for him to agree.”

“You’re damn right,” Roman cut in, dead serious. “Nothing touches this face.”

Dean felt himself breaking into a grin. “All this is doing is making me wish that the Hardcore Championship still existed. That puppy’d be mine forever.”

“It would,” Seth agreed, and Dean paused for a second, noting that this was the first time in over a year that Seth Rollins of all people had said something positive to him. “There’s got to be a replica belt that we could get for you somewhere at least.”

“We?” Dean repeated, his mouth going a little dry before getting defensive. “Just because I’m not able to throttle you over the phone don’t mean we’re brothers again now, buddy.”

“I know,” Seth replied, not sounding the least bit fazed. “I’m just… I’m really glad that I’m able to talk to you somehow in a way where you _can’t_ throttle me, Dean.”

“You wouldn’t hurt someone already injured anyway, Dean,” Roman ‘Moral Compass’ Reigns interjected again. “You’re not that kind of guy, we all know that.”

“Hold on, I’m having flashbacks to watching a certain Rated-R Superstar nearly get decapitated last year ‘round this time, actually,” Dean retorted, sounding a little snarkier than he actually intended. “Just because someone says they won’t do it doesn’t mean that they a) don’t have a breaking point and b) won’t at least weigh it as an option.”

Seth’s voice turned somber. “I did what I thought I had to do to stay afloat, Dean. Do you think I really would have done Edge dirty like that? It was all for show. John Cena’s a pushover anyway.”

“Still,” Roman said, obviously getting tired of having to fight for a word in edgewise (pun unintended), “if we’re going to pretend that everyone here has never once done anything wrong or selfish in their life, then we have nothing to talk about, really.”

“I don’t forgive often,” Dean reiterated his old adage. “And I -”

“‘Never forget.’” Seth finished for him. “I wouldn’t expect you to, Dean. And I’m not expecting you to now. I… I thought we were having a nice conversation, though. The three of us; it felt like old times. Before I fucked up. Believe me, I’d like that back. All of it, everything before I got greedy and left you two.”

Dean couldn’t remember how many times he’d played a conversation like this over and over again in his mind before today, but he had to sit down at this new revelation. He knew this to be true in his heart, of course, but it was so much more fulfilling to hear it out loud. “I don’t believe you,” he managed to croak out.

“I know,” was all Seth said in reply.

“Dean? The doctor just knocked on the door and I have to go anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” Roman tried to sound somewhat normal. “Talk to you later, man.”

“Wait -” Dean nearly shouted down the phone, but his phone screen flashed back on to let him know the call had just ended on the other side. He put his phone on the side table and sunk further into the armchair he had slowly lowered himself in before.

Maybe he didn’t have to forget, but Dean could stand to forgive a little more.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess I'll just keep churning out the one-shots between updates of my chapter-fics. Also, fun fact: I forgot the name of Dean's little half-kick rebound off the ropes (basically I couldn't remember the word "rebound") so I typed "Ambrose does the ropes thingy" verbatim into Google to solve my problem. Gotta love search engines. Also peep the references to the 'Vince gets the shit knocked out of him by SCSA' incident in 1998 and the 'BAH GAWD EDGE HAS A FAMILY' incident last year.
> 
> Title/summary comes from 'Wait For It' from the _Hamilton: An American Musical_ OBC soundtrack.


End file.
